He left New Nazareth for me.
He still loves me.
“Fuck,” Salvador says.
There are two children among the dead. One barely looks old enough to be without his parents, the other just about to age out of the choir. Cormac takes their ears too. I don’t want to look at them but I do, trying to place them, to put names to the bodies I know. Eventually I stop seeing faces and start seeing a jumble of eyes, mouths, and noses that my brain won’t let me put together into a person. Small mercies.
Silently, I pray for the dead. I don’t know if it works, I don’t know if it means anything, but it stops the sick feeling in my chest, so it must count for something.
Nick sits beside me on the steps. His right index finger and thumb tap together over and over and over, a heartbeat in anxious double time.
His left hand offers the pistol.
My face burns. Between the vision and Theo, I hadn’t noticed I’d lost it.
“I found this under the balcony,” Nick says. No accusation of carelessness. Just a simple statement of fact.
“Sorry,” I say. “I must have dropped it. It won’t happen again.”
I don’t take the pistol. He doesn’t move it away.
I say, “I don’t want it.”
“All right.” He puts it in his jacket.
“How many Angels…？”
“Fourteen.”
Fourteen. Double what we took to the Vanguard. There’s no way they can screw us out of supplies this time.
We gather ourselves the best we can. I shake Salvador out of xyr silence while Nick coaxes Faith out of her catatonic state. We try to bring Aisha inside so we can talk about getting back to the ALC, but she bursts into tears as soon as she turns to face the pews, so we meet in the churchyard instead.
The mass of the not-quite dead cry as we leave, and I whisper over my shoulder: I’ll be back.
I promised Theo I would.
* * *
Halfway to the ALC, Aisha staggers. “They were kids,” she whimpers. “They were kids.”
“It doesn’t matter if they were kids,” Cormac snaps, and Aisha punches him in the stomach. Nobody helps when he folds and throws up on the sidewalk.
Stand on any roof, wall, or hill tonight and watch the world slow down. Watch it empty. Watch it return to the paradise our Lord intended. This is a once-in-a-lifetime experience. Isn’t it beautiful?
—Diary of Sister Kimberly Jones
Three people welcome us back to the ALC: Alex, Sadaf, and Erin. Nobody else.
Erin nearly collapses with relief, wrapping Salvador in her arms because xe’s the first person she can reach. Alex counts us twice, checks the blackboard in the lobby, and counts us again. Satisfied that everyone has come back, they leave. Sadaf leads Aisha away, promising Faith she’ll take care of her. Every other person in the ALC, if they have the misfortune to come through the lobby at that exact moment, ducks their head and leaves.
We take turns changing out of our black uniforms in the laundry room, except Nick, who disappears upstairs. Some of us take longer than others. I’m in and out in a minute, jamming the clothes in a bin, while Erin helps Salvador get xyr arm out of the sleeve due to a nasty scrape. Erin says she’ll let Sadaf know, because someone should really look at it. Salvador insists xe’s fine, xe’s fine, it’s nothing to worry about, please don’t take her away from Aisha.
Then we pull just enough water to clean ourselves and draw straws for order. I get the shortest straw, and Faith tries to protest, but I hide it before she can take it. By the time the water gets to me, it’s cold and murky. I dunk my hair and scrub an old washcloth across my arms, and I don’t let myself take long because if I do I’ll try to scrub off my skin.